Cindy Holm
If you happened to drive along SaddleBrooke Blvd. during the first week of November, you may have noticed the orange garbage bags dotting the roadway. These bags were filled by 20 members of Cyclemasters who volunteered their time to keep the entrance into our community looking clean and inviting! This recent event was organized by Cyclemasters members Don and Debbie Grafmiller.
Cyclemasters members have been attending to cleaning up SaddleBrooke Blvd. for approximately 30 years. Over the years, there has been a pattern in the kinds of garbage collected. Beer bottles, wine bottles, mini liquor bottles, cigarette butts, and certain “protective” items hint toward the kind of activity that may be occurring when no one is looking! Some items, such as carpet remnants and rubber flooring, suggest that construction items may escape truck beds from time to time. Dirty diapers and dead animals are also thrown into the mix, causing some volunteers to flinch, understandably! Overall, the most common items littered are bottles, cups, straws, cans, and cigarette butts, which indicates that people mostly drink and smoke in their cars! Having grown up with the image of the Native American with a tear in his eye as he surveyed a littered landscape, it’s hard to imagine discarding these items on purpose. I’m sure most others in our community feel the same and are grateful to the volunteers who value and care about our little space in this world and pick up the trash discarded by others!